I just saw the president of Argentina...

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And she seems pretty cool. I woke up early with plans to do some adventuring, and stumbled onto a huge march stretching innumerable city blocks to the steps of Congress where Christina was talking. I didn´t really expect the porteñnos to be out marching in full effect, but surprisingly they were.

Other observations about Buenos Aires thus far:

*The city is very pretty, clean, and at moments sleek. The architecture is gorgeous and mostly everything downtown is really well-maintained.

*I am getting harrassed by more guys here than anywhere else I´ve ever travelled (even Nicaragua!). I have started saying that I am German and don´t speak Spanish. I have yet to find a common street harrasser who speaks German, so this plan is working well.

*One of the Cooperative Associations around the corner from my hotel has a bookstore and cafe with which I am in love

*People talk real funny. Everything has lots of shhhhh´s. Por ejemplo, el bus shhhheyga a las 8. Or, cual es tu appeshhhhido? Maybe I am just defensive of Central American spanish, but I´m not a big fan.

*I got hustled by a taxi driver! I am still not entirely sure how he did it, but I ended up with less money than I should have. It was the first time EVER - either travelling or in the states - that I´ve been hustled out of money like that (not including Bank of America, of course). How embarrassed to get hustled in Argentina and not in Ciudad Sandino or Bed Stuy!!! Oh well... a couple days ago in New York this middle aged man dropped a twenty dollar bill. By the time I realized it was his, he was about a block and a half away. I could have caught him, but instead I called out "hey!" (faintly) and when he didn´t answer I put the money in my pocket. This twenty dollars was part of the money I exchanged for Argentinian pesos at the airport. So I´m fairly certain that I was hoodwinked by a lame porteño taxi driver because of the bad karma I created with that Andrew Jackson. Moral of the story kids, what goes around comes around!!!!!